Hacked Macron Emails Dumped on Eve of French Election

 

An election draws near, and thousands of campaign emails are dumped online. Sound familiar?

This time the victim is French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron whose En Marche! Movement was apparently hacked less than two days before French voters decide between him and Marine Le Pen. Nine gigabytes of data were posted anonymously to document-sharing site Pastebin. Macron’s campaign confirmed the breach:

“The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information,” the statement said.

An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight French time on Friday (2200 GMT).

That last bit creates a problem for Macron. According to French law, politicians, journalists, and even citizens, are forbidden from broadcasting any “electoral propaganda” for the last 44 hours before the election. This rule might have made sense in an age of newspapers, TV, and radio, but it’s much harder to police speech online and across borders.

Heading into the election, Macron is heavily favored. We’ll have to wait until the evening of May 7 to see what impact this last-minute document dump will have.

Published in Foreign Policy, Politics
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  1. BD1 Member
    BD1
    @

    “Journalist” Matthew Dalton at WSJ: “The diffusion of the rumor about Mr. Macron appeared to follow a playbook increasingly familiar to Western officials: A network of far-right activists using the internet to distribute unsubstantiated or false information about politicians opposed to their positions.”

    So this information is fake and from the far-right or real and from the Russians?

    • #31
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Claire Berlinski, Ed. (View Comment):
    I’ve got my election piece coming out later today (I hope), and will post it. The (longstanding) French law that forbids media commentary liable to influence an election went into effect at midnight last night. The Interior Ministry has reminded the French media that in light of this, it’s open to criminal charges if it publishes details of the leak. They’re not just pulling this out of their butts: the law has long been on the books. As an American I of course think any law that tells what the press what it can say or when is wrong. But as a legal resident here, I’ll follow French law. Thus I won’t write about the content of the leaks or what they mean until after the election.

    One page of text ≈ 2K

    9G of text ≈ 4,500,000 pages

    This was dumped just before “lights out.”  That might have been done to prevent detailed analysis prior to the election, to heap as much doubt on Macron as possible.

    • #32
  3. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    • #33
  4. BD1 Member
    BD1
    @

    Animal Farm 2017 – Some “unsubstantiated documents” are more equal than others.

    • #34
  5. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    • #35
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    Fact? It has been alleged. The allegation came from Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike is the only organization that had access to the DNC’s servers. Crowdstrike was hired by the DNC. If the FBI has anything else at all, they’ve been surprisingly quiet about it.

    • #36
  7. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    This has absolutely no coherent basis in reality.  Unless there is something remarkable in the classified reports.

    • #37
  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    BD1 (View Comment):
    “Journalist” Matthew Dalton at WSJ: “The diffusion of the rumor about Mr. Macron appeared to follow a playbook increasingly familiar to Western officials: A network of far-right activists using the internet to distribute unsubstantiated or false information about politicians opposed to their positions.”

    So this information is fake and from the far-right or real and from the Russians?

    The very idea of any kind of organized effort on the Right is hilarious.

    • #38
  9. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    This has absolutely no coherent basis in reality. Unless there is something remarkable in the classified reports.

    Sticking you head in the sand is apparently what “conservatives” do now.

    • #39
  10. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Percival (View Comment):

    Guruforhire (View Comment):
    His tax evasion was also revealed.

    Evading taxes in a socialist country? I should hope so.

    Average person? Absolutely.  More power to them.

    Socialist leaning politicians?  hang em by their heels ala Il Duce.

    • #40
  11. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    This has absolutely no coherent basis in reality. Unless there is something remarkable in the classified reports.

    Sticking you head in the sand is apparently what “conservatives” do now.

    [Redacted.]

    • #41
  12. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    KC Mulville (View Comment):
    Pause here while every politician goes and deletes every email.

    At this point, any politician who keeps damaging emails floating in storage, is just too stupid to deserve election.

    Years ago I did communications work for my city government. My first day, I was informed that every city email can be FOIA-ed, so before hitting “send,” make sure you’re comfortable with the fact that they might go public at some point.

    So, if I was ticked off or there was a sensitive issue, I’d just walk over to their office to talk in person. I’ve kept that attitude ever since.

    It’s beyond me how some folks in high-profile positions don’t follow the same rule. (:cough: Podesta! :cough:)

    I think “arrogance” suffices as an explanation.  I was told the same thing -as a professor at a state college, as an employee of a city government, everything that I write can be subpoenaed or FOIA-ed.  Write appropriately.

    But we all know that such laws only apply to little people -they don’t apply to Clintons or Macrons.  So they don’t behave that way.  And then are shocked to find out that even the FBI can be guilted into sometimes doing its job.

    • #42
  13. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

     

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    This has absolutely no coherent basis in reality. Unless there is something remarkable in the classified reports.

    Sticking you head in the sand is apparently what “conservatives” do now.

    Saying it doesn’t make evidence appear.

    • #43
  14. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    This has absolutely no coherent basis in reality. Unless there is something remarkable in the classified reports.

    Sticking you head in the sand is apparently what “conservatives” do now.

    Saying it doesn’t make evidence appear.

    The evidence is there you just refuse to look at it.

    • #44
  15. Matt White Member
    Matt White
    @

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    Jamie Lockett (View Comment):
    Isn’t it odd how the beneficiaries of these hacks happen to be Putin stooges?

    Y’all said Trump was Putin’s stooge, but Putin doesn’t seem very happy with him now.

    How does that change the fact that prior to his election Putin used the FSB to undermine his opponent?

    You’re getting delusional here.

    • #45
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